Measurements, Quantum Limits and All That

Miguel Orszag

Vittorio Giovannetti, Seth Lloyd, Lorenzo Maccone

Quantum mechanics, through the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, imposes limits on the precision of measurement. Conventional measurement techniques typically fail to reach these limits. Conventional bounds to the precision of measurements such as the shot noise limit or the standard quantum limit are not as fundamental as the Heisenberg limits and can be beaten using quantum strategies that employ "quantum tricks" such as squeezing and entanglement.

Akira Shimizu

Quantum information theory is closely related to quantum measurement theory because one must perform measurement to obtain information on a quantum system. Among many possible limits of quantum measurement, the simplest ones were derived directly from the uncertainty principles. However, such simple limits are not the only limits. I here suggest a new limit which comes from the forms and the strengths of the elementary interactions. Namely, there are only four types of elementary interactions in nature; their forms are determined by the gauge invariance (and symmetry breaking), and their coupling constants (in the low-energy regime) have definite values. I point out that this leads to a new fundamental limit of quantum measurements. Furthermore, this fundamental limit imposes the fundamental limits of getting information on, preparing, and controlling quantum systems.

Chen Mechel, Jonathan Nemirovsky, Eliahu Cohen +1 more

Abstract Major advances in the precision of magnetic measurements bring us closer to quantum detection of individual spins at the single-atom level. On the quest for reducing both classical and quantum measurement noise, it is intriguing to look forward and search for precision limits arising from the fundamental quantum nature of the measurement process itself. Here, we present the limits of magnetic quantum measurements arising from quantum information considerations, and apply these limits to a concrete example of magnetic force microscopy (MFM). We show how such microscopes have a fundamental limit on their precision arising from the theory of imperfect quantum cloning, manifested by the entanglement between the measured system and the measurement probe. We show that counterintuitively, increasing the probe complexity decreases both the measurement noise and back action, and a judicious design of the magnetic interaction reveals optimal schemes already at spin-1 probes.

Miguel Orszag